Life Ain't a Fairytale
by magic0logy
Summary: They always find their way back.
1. Intelligence Killed the Cat

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Part of the Life Ain't a Fairytale series, although it can stand alone. Uber short. Written for onceuponaprompt over at LJ. Prompt is intelligence.

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><p><strong>Intelligence Killed the Cat<strong>

A girl who wants to set the world on fire still needs a little tinder. Too bad he's not hers.

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><p><em>Go. Seek out the wolf. It's a menace to society.<em>

It's early morning, the birds are chirping the same song as the day before and the day before that, and the Sheriff smiles his crooked smile as he sips his coffee and listens to Ruby discuss metaphors and similes and lyrics.

"You," he sets the mug down on the coaster, "are much more intelligent than people take you for."

"More curious," she corrects. "People here seem to think that what I look like has something to do with who I am." She leans over the counter and whispers, making him feel like he's a conspirator in a crime. "All the more reason to get out of here."

A warning glance from Granny and she jumps back like she's caught fire, and maybe she has, because he's burning. She shoots him a look, a mix of _see what I'm talking about_ and _save me_, and he chuckles. There have been days when he's wanted nothing more than to get out of Storybrooke, just like her, and he's tried. Something always derailed him-Regina, a lost puppy, a tornado. He's long given up. Maybe it's fate. Maybe he never tried hard enough.

He's sure, however, that if anyone will be able to get out, it's Ruby, if only because she'll never stop trying.

In the evenings he comes in for (an) Irish coffee(s) and a game of darts and he stays long after the diner has been abandoned for other haunts. Stays and listens to her talk and dream and wishes he could grant her every wish, everything she deserves and more, but he can't. So he listens, because tinder is necessary for a girl who wants to set the world on fire.

Regina tells him to keep an eye on Ruby and he does, but not for the same reasons. Ruby is dangerous because she asks questions, and a young woman who asks questions is a threat to someone like Regina, who has somehow managed to keep everyone under her thumb for the past umpteenth terms.

Graham likes a girl who can think for herself.

Time doesn't go on, but it feels that way and he's the one Ruby turns to when Granny's rushed to the hospital for a heart attack at 2 AM in the morning. He's lying in Regina's ice-cold bed when the hysterical phone call comes.

"Can't it wait until morning?" Regina asks, as she rakes her fingernails down his back.

"No, it can't," is his curt reply, and he leaves. There never was any other option.

Granny doesn't get better and soon it feels like she's been sick forever. Ruby's life spirals out of control. She starts drinking vodka instead of coffee, starts bringing men back to the Inn. She tells him she just wants to escape, to forget life for a second, no matter how fleeting. Graham doesn't know why it bothers him. He's just keeping an eye on her, after all.

He distracts Ruby with picnics and joyrides and music, but she doesn't say much anymore. She's angry most of the time, lashing out at the world like it's out to get her, like she's the only one who life screws over. He still listens. He's not sure why.

When Regina comments that he and Ruby seem friendly, maybe a little too friendly, he responds that he's just keeping an eye on her, like she asked.

He has no idea how _friendly_ has turned into this, into hoping that somehow she'll change back into the girl she used to be, the girl who just wanted to see the world and absorb everything it had to offer, not the girl who wants to leave and never come back.

Graham quashes the nagging realization that leaving and never coming back roughly translates to never seeing her again. The word 'never' is too short to feel like forever, and too final to be dwelled upon.

They're sitting in a booth at the diner when Ruby finally asks him the question he hoped would (never) cross her mind.

"Why do you care about me?" she asks, and he sees how foolish of him it was to think a girl as _intelligent_ as her would never see right through.

"I can't _not_ care," he says, and she understands his circular response. The problem is, it doesn't answer her question.

"Why did you care about me to begin with?" she clarifies, desperately hoping that the answer is not what she thinks it is.

Storybrooke decides that's too much to ask for.

"Regina wanted me to keep an eye on you," he mutters, casting his gaze away.

She feels her heart break, feels a silver bullet pierce each chamber, and decides that intelligent girls always get their hearts broken. They're too good at creating the gun.

"You're the reason Ash has to babysit Henry on Thursday evenings," she says, her hazel eyes freezing over. The lack of feeling in her voice terrifies him. "You're the Mayor's. And you care about me because _she_ asked you to."

He prays to a God he doesn't believe in, prays that she'll forgive him.

Storybrooke decides that's too much to ask for too.

"Ruby-"

"Get out," she hisses. "Get. Out."

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><p><strong>AN: **...pretty sure I'm the only one who ships these two, but still, they are my guilty pleasure.

**Reviews=love!**


	2. Darling, You're On My Mind 247

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Part of the Life Ain't a Fairytale series, although it can stand alone. Written for onceuponaprompt over at LJ. Prompt is 24/7.

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><p><strong>Darling, You're On My Mind 247**

Go to work, get wasted, go home. Repeat until death occurs.

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><p>247. That's how often she's on his mind. And how much time does he get to spend with her?

0/0. Zero hours a day, zero days a week. Because he screwed up.

Graham sits at a bar on the other side of town drowning his sorrows in Scotch and vodka, seething-passively grumbling about how unfair life is. It's not like he asked to care about Ruby. It's not like he asked Regina to make him keep an eye on her. It's not like he asked to be born with the capacity to lie.

Then again, there's a ton of shit he didn't ask for in life, but shit still finds its way toward him and hits him like a ton of bricks.

He asks for another shot of vodka. The bartender-whose name escapes him, he only comes here _every day_-slides one over and Graham gulps it down. It burns as it washes down his throat. He smirks. He's not so drunk he can't see the irony. He used to tell her that alcohol was no way to solve her problems.

It still isn't. But it makes forgetting easy.

Except when he's around Regina. Which, unfortunately, is _a lot_. Occupational hazard.

Being around Regina reminds him of Ruby in more ways than he'd care to admit. Both so angry, so desperate, so _beautiful_, all dark, glossy hair and crimson lips and pale skin and tongues as sharp as spears. He thinks of Ruby, the last time they spoke-_get out, she spat_-and Regina, only hours before-_what the hell are you still doing here_. He sees how similar they are, how Regina _is_ Ruby, gone wrong. Perhaps that's why she asked him to keep an eye on Ruby to begin with.

It worries him, how Ruby could become her, but his will to stop it from happening is tempered by his fear of failure and his primal instinct to sprint in the opposite direction, to be far, far away from it all if it does happen. Because Ruby has seen Regina, and Ruby can play smarter, can be Regina better than Regina can.

The bartender slips him another shot.

The alcohol burns away Regina's poison, the sweet, rotten taste fresh on his tongue. A faceless girl sits down next to him and orders an apple martini; he slides three stools over. He's lost his taste for apples.

He's seen Ruby around town, of course, seen her bare her pearly whites and laugh at jokes that aren't funny, seen her turn on her heel and toss her silky, red-streaked locks. She knows how she tempts men that aren't good for her, how their ravenous eyes travel over her like she's something to eat. She knows that Graham is watching with his dark, fiery eyes and that he fumes with jealousy.

The men aren't good for her, she's not good for the men. She's not good for Graham, either.

Scratch that: he and her are not good for each other, and he's okay with that.

He's seen the red vintage convertible speed past his house in the dead of night, toward the town border, toward freedom.

He's also seen her slow as she passes his place on the way back, but she moves on, always moves on. He wonders who she'll be with on those nights.

Granny visited him at the office earlier today, bursting in with the agility of a woman much younger than she. Up close, he'd noticed shadows of fatigue under her eyes. She'd been fighting with Ruby again.

"I didn't approve of your rela-whatever with my granddaughter. I still don't. I don't need the Mayor in our hair. But whatever's happened between you two, you better fix it before she ends up dead in a gutter."

The Lucas family females are clearly very bad at extending olive branches. "She hates me," he countered.

"She hates everyone but you," the older woman corrects. "That's why she's so angry. Because she's been hurt by someone who she cares about."

"Fix it!" and then she hobbles out the door as fast as she came, leaving a stunned sheriff at his desk.

Graham raises two fingers for another shot, but the bartender refuses. He's just about to pull out the badge, play the 'do what I want or I'll arrest you' card when-

"Listen, buddy, whatever girl you're pining for, go get her. I don't want to see you here again tomorrow."

He's confused when the surly bouncers drag him out of the bar and toss him out into the bitter cold, but he stumbles off in what he hopes is the general direction of his house, and arrives at the same intersection he ends up at every night, the same one he tells himself he'll avoid next time but never does.

Turn right, go home, vomit, collapse into bed, wake up with wicked hangover. Shower. Go to work. Go to bar. Repeat.

Go straight, open the diner door. She'll be in there, maybe with someone, maybe not; maybe she'll be drunk like him. What happens next?

Maybe it's time to find out. There'll be no repeating. He flips a coin and it rolls into a sewer.

Straight it is, then.

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><p><strong>AN: **I write fanfiction when I should be studying. Go figure.

**Reviews=love.**


	3. The Bell Tolls at Midnight

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Part of the Life Ain't a Fairytale series, although it can stand alone. Uber short. Written for onceuponaprompt over at LJ. Prompt is midnight.

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><p><strong>The Bell Tolls at Midnight<strong>

And the wolves come out to play.

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><p>The clock strikes midnight.<p>

Well, it doesn't actually strike midnight, since, you know, the clock tower doesn't actually work, but Ruby knows the time. She always knows things when there's a full moon. Something about the way it glows must sharpen her senses, Granny used to say, back when they had a good relationship.

She doesn't recall them ever having a good relationship. She's learned not to let this bother her.

Outside the moon is bright and Ruby pretends to dry dishes while she worries.

Worries because it is long past Henry's bedtime, and there is never any crime in this stagnant town.

A shiver runs up her spine, the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end, and she looks up as a car parks-screeches-out in front of the diner, headlights blinding, sirens off-as usual. She briefly wonders what felonies she would have to commit to get those sirens to whine, to wake the town.

_Don't ever make it seem like you waited_, warns Granny in her mind, unwavering, unwanted, unneeded. Ruby turns her attention back to the dish she's been drying for the past half hour.

The bell at the door chimes and Ruby doesn't need to look up to know it's him because she has everything about him memorized, from the tread of his boots as he tracks mud on the linoleum she's just cleaned to the sound of his jacket as he unzips it and tosses it onto the coat rack. Maybe she does have a routine memorized for everyone who frequents the diner, but only _his_ makes her heart skip a beat.

And that scares the shit out of her.

"You're late, Sheriff."

"I'm sorry," he answers, frazzled, and then he's behind her, his arms intertwined around her waist and his lips burning, circling in patterns down her collarbone.

"I tried, but Regina-"

Ruby stiffens.

"Never mind. It doesn't matter." He kneads out the knots in her shoulders, kissing where his fingers leave off. She doesn't move. He spins her around.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

His collar is lopsided. His buttons are done up wrong. His hair is rumpled and all she wants to do is tangle her fingers in his curly locks and make it worse.

Maybe any other night she would give into his desperate charm, kick off her high heels and do things that would make Granny _tut_. After all, being everyone's favorite girl is what she does best. But she knows exactly why he looks so...exhausted, and while she doesn't care so much about being the only one, she has to be the one that matters.

_You smell like her_, she wants to say, but she doesn't.

Ruby fiddles with his collar and smooths out the creases in his shirt.

"How was she tonight, Sheriff?"

She toys with his top buttons before she undoes them and drags her perfectly manicured fingernails down his chest. He winces.

"Did she touch you like I do?" she hisses, her grin coy.

She tugs him down and catches his lips in hers. She bites, _hard_, and he groans and leans in, his hands tugging at her apron strings. She slaps them away.

"Did she kiss you like I do?" she purrs, and licks the metallic taste of blood from his mouth.

"Ruby," he breathes out.

She takes his hand and plants a kiss upon his palm; her scarlet lips stain his fingers. He stares, eyes wide.

"Does she love you like I do?" she whispers, soft and sweet and just a little bit _scared_, because she's never put her heart on the line, because somehow she always gets baited and torn.

One hand squeezes hers, his other grips her waist. When he lets go to bury his fingers in her hair, her pale skin blushes in the shape of his palm. "Ruby, some people come here to forget," he says, his lips grazing her ear. "I come here to remember. To remember who I am."

He lifts her onto the counter in one smooth motion and she leans back against the freezing tile as a yelp of indignation escapes her. Her feverish breath warms his cheek. "You keep me sane."

"Sanity is overrated," she laughs. "We're all mad here."

He chuckles. "Maybe your madness keeps me sane."

Her lips part to say something, but he kisses her and the words are lost, transformed into whimpers. He's kissed her before, but only now does he realize she tastes of strawberries-not the kind you buy at the market, either. The wild sort that sprouts and flourishes in the woods, against all wolves and weather and odds. He's not sure how he knows what wild fruit tastes like, but he is quite sure of _her_, sure that she is the only real presence in this world.

When he surfaces, he swears he sees her eyes flash a shade of gold, but then he blinks and they're hazel again, green-speckled hazel.

"I love you," he murmurs, and kisses her again. This time he doesn't let go.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls as dishes are left abandoned and a bell chimes twelve times; _tick, tock, it's midnight and there isn't much time 'til morning_.

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><p><strong>AN: **lalala spring break. I swear these two will be the death of me.

**Reviews=love.**


	4. A Broken Smile

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Part of the Life Ain't a Fairytale series, although it can stand alone. Written for onceuponaprompt over at LJ. Prompt is smile.

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><p><strong>A Broken Smile<strong>

It befits a ghost of a girl.

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><p>Men falter under her smile, that dangerous plastic grin she shoots before she leans over the counter and pounces. Her prey don't know it's a ghost that weakens their knees and hardens them...elsewhere. They don't know that she killed-devoured-her beloved in another world, a world that brought happy endings to everyone but the broken girls with killer smiles and the heartless boys with empty eyes.<p>

They don't know she fell in love again with a hunter who taught her how to control her curse. They don't know he was snatched away by an evil queen with a smile just like hers.

She doesn't know either. All Ruby knows is vodka and Scotch on Friday nights and Graham's cool fingers against her skin, and Granny's sigh of resignation when she takes him home to a perpetually vacant inn. She knows _him_, how he clumsily rids her of her clothes as their bodies fall on her red bedspread in a sweaty tangle of limbs. She knows how his kiss leaves a bittersweet taste on her tongue and how he gazes into her eyes as he thrusts and how he moans when he loses control and collapses on top of her. She knows how he traces the curve of her smile with his lips and how he murmurs her name in his sleep at 2 AM in the morning and how he tightens his arms around her when he wakes up and sees that she's still there. And when he tells her he loves her, she wonders if leaving Storybrooke is such a good idea after all.

He always leaves before daybreak, and she dresses in skirts that are too short and pops the top buttons of her uniform before she walks into the diner. He's never far behind her. Her fingertips graze his wrist as she hands him his usual, bacon and eggs, and she hears Granny clear her throat in warning as the bell chimes and the Mayor walks in, shiny in her sleek suits.

The Mayor slides into his booth, all business as usual, and Ruby serves the woman her regular morning coffee, black, with a fake smile plastered to her face. She moves on to other customers, but her gaze always fleets back to them when the Bitch pats him on the hand.

_Do you know I fuck him on the nights he's not with you?_

_Do you know how bright his eyes are on those nights?_

There are many, many things Ruby would love to say to the Mayor, but every morning she lets it slide and the Mayor walks out of the diner without a backward glance. Graham follows his boss, a dog on a leash, but he winks at Ruby and when Ruby smiles back, her smile is genuine, whole.

He comes back for lunch, scares away men like Dr. Whale who need to stay far, far away from her, and makes plans for dinner.

They could have gone on like that, strangers in the night, all clandestine winks and glances, but they become careless, as people do, and one evening Sidney walks in on them. Graham backs away, makes a futile effort to straighten his hair, and Ruby scrambles to button up her top as she hops off the counter, her heels clacking along the linoleum.

_How can I help you, Sidney_, she asks warmly, fake smile back on like nothing has happened, but the damage is done. And it cannot be erased.

The next day they make the Mirror's gossip column. The day after, the Mayor threatens to shut down the Diner, on some contrived accusation of public indecency, as if-

It doesn't matter if it's plausible. The Diner is their primary source of income, the only means by which she and Granny manage. And the Mayor can take it away.

Desperate souls go to Mr. Gold, but even the most powerful man in town can't get _out_ of town, and the two lovers turn away, dejected.

"What's this?" she asks when he hands her a red glass wolf from the pawn shop.

"A lucky charm to keep you safe," he murmurs against her hair, eyes closed. "Maybe you won't forget about us."

"I won't forget," she scoffs, and melts into him, her smile already fading. It's their last night together.

"Everyone forgets in this wretched town."

The next day, he goes back to being the sheriff and she goes back to being the waitress, and they become ghosts once more, pawns in a power struggle.

Eventually, the weather changes and they do forget and all traces of _them_ disappear with the wind.

The sheriff lies next to the mayor, eyes wide and vacant. There must be something more to this life. There must be a way to _feel_ something other than boredom and resentment.

Across town, the waitress keys an asshole's car, the latest in a long string of them, and stumbles back to her own car. She cries and asks her lucky charm to _please, if she can't fucking leave, just let her veer off into the woods and wrap around a tree and never be seen again_, but it doesn't. It never does.

When Granny asks her-tentatively-how her night was, she simply smiles.

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><p><strong>AN**: Finally got a chance to update. This has been sitting in my computer for a while. I hope you all enjoy it, and there'll probably be one left.


	5. The First Dance

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Part of the Life Ain't a Fairytale series, although it can stand alone. Written for onceuponaprompt over at LJ. Prompt is smile.

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><p><strong>The First Dance<strong>

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><p>People twirling, music blasting, awkward wallflowers off to the side. The feeling of repressed winter energy finally released into muggy spring air. The Masquerade. Another annual festivity with a long history no one remembers.<p>

The sheriff loathes this holiday because masks, especially under the cloak of night, always seem to spawn trouble he has to deal with. But tonight he's not here as sheriff. He's left the deputy in charge.

Graham casts his gaze along the square, scanning the sea of masked forms as they ebb and flow in sync with the music.

Then he finds her.

Forever the only one clothed in red, the mask over her eyes is bedazzled with fake rubies and her milky breasts are popping out of a tight scarlet dress Granny definitely did not approve of.

Even at an event where anonymity is king, Ruby manages to stand out and let everyone know who she is. To distinguish herself as the problem child of the town. His problem, most of the time, because he's the one who tells Dr. Whale to back off, he's the one who finds her wasted in the dead of night and drags her home, he's the one who tows her car when it stalls at the border.

Everyone knows how much she hates her life-it's actually a running joke, her wanting out-but you'd never know how insecure she is if you saw her now, her confident smirk as multicolored masks surround her, all hoping to get lucky.

They're not going to.

He smirks as he cuts the line. "Care to dance?"

She whips around and recognition lights her eyes like she sees right through his basic mask. He wonders if his identity is that obvious, or if she just knows him that well. He chooses not to dwell on the fact that he hopes for the latter.

"Nice accent, stranger."

The jarring beats of rap and hip hop mellow out into R & B and she pushes her blue-clad dance partner away. The man huffs with disappointment. She's not looking. Her eyes are trained on Graham, the man in black, her lips curling into a smile as she nods. He pulls her into his arms and they sway together.

"It's been a while," he remarks.

She purses her lips into a mock frown. "Aww, did you miss me?"

"Maybe," he replies. This is how it's always been with them, uncertain and ambiguous and never acknowledging anything because they don't know anything, only unfounded, omnipresent feelings for one another. He eyes the glass wolf hung around her neck, tantalizing over her cleavage. "I see you've taken to wearing your lucky charm."

"Thought it'd keep me safe from creepers tonight." She stretches to look at the emptied space behind him and adds, "I guess you double as a lucky charm as well."

He ducks his head, an _honorable_ bow, a nod to a life they don't remember. "I try."

He doesn't notice Ruby roll her eyes. "No dog collar tonight?" She pretends to look around for the Mayor's watchful eye. "Boy toys are allowed to get a night off?"

"Of course," he chuckles. "I do need a break for my sanity."

"Sanity is overrated."

Somehow he feels like she's said that to him before, which is ridiculous because he remembers everything she says to him, and she has never said anything beyond serving food and mindless flirtation and incoherent rambling. But it's not the first time he's had this innate sense that he's missing something between themm. That's why he's here. He's doing what he's always done as sheriff. Investigating. Seeking out answers.

Gently, he slides his fingers down her side and lets them rest at her waist, where her curves mesh with the sheer material. He gets the feeling he's done that before.

"Careful," she says, her tone cautious, but she leans in so that their foreheads almost touch. "People would look down on a, ah, _public_ servant, doing that in _public_."

"And you?" he asks smugly.

"I'm looking up, aren't I?"

He twirls her around and draws her closer, his lips brushing against the top of her head. He smiles against her hair; the red and black pawns collide. "You look beautiful tonight," he murmurs. "I would say that everyday, except I'm not allowed to."

"Yes, because you've _never_ done something you weren't allowed," she responds, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Well, I suppose tonight, anything goes. No one would know."

A pause. A very pregnant one.

Then he kisses her, and now he knows he's done that before, whether he remembers or not. He could never forget her, this, them.

"Now what would others say if they saw you do that unmasked?" she taunts when they break apart, her breath warming his chilly lips.

"Inappropriate," he mutters before he kisses her again. "You?"

"Take me home with you, Sheriff."

"As you wish." He's never letting go. Not now that he's found her.

Their fingers intertwine. It's a perfect fit.

_In a sea of flowers, an evil queen chats with the most powerful man in the world._

_Why is it impossible to separate them for good? Why do they always find their way back?_

_Because that, dearie, is the power of true love._

**_Fin_**

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>Wow, it has been a long time. Sorry about the hiatus, I've been busy. Hope you guys like it!


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